liebster award

Friday, November 8, 2013

Station activity - Sequences and Series - Before

I like the concept of station activities. I truly do, but preparing one is nothing less than an exercise in frustration and just darn tiring.

Admin decided that since stations work so well in ELA that math should be doing them regularly as well. I know people have blogged about this topic before Julie at I speak math being the quintessential example. But the department chair (and presumably the administration) have made it clear that station activities should look a certain way. ie. technology enhanced station, a teacher led station (forget about being able to help stuck groups).

enough complaining...My goal here is to actually blog before and after and see hwo I do at predicting how things will go.

The unit we are covering in Algebra 2 is sequences and series. our stations include 1) identifying arithmatic vs geometric sequences (and differences and ratios) 2) finding the sum of an infinite geometric series (on the NSPIRE) 3) a teacher led station on "neither" sequences such as squares and Fibonacci and the two I worked on 4) having students find the rule for sum of angles of a regular polygon and # of triangles formed from a vertex of a regular polygon (both done through the use of geogebra and IPADS) and 5) a hands on station in which students will tie knots in a rope and measure how the length changes.

Students will rotate in small groups around the stations interacting with the activity and, hopefully, the mathematics which ties all of these mini-lessons together. At the end they will turn in a single page which has a space for work from each station as well as a short response question at the end.

I already know that the NSPIRE activity will likely be a problem. I've found that the students frequently find the NSPIREs complicated and manipulating the buttons and sliders is not as easy as it *should* be.

I'm hoping that being tied the whole time to a single lesson isn't frustrating as I know that normally I would prefer being able to move around the room assisting or just observing.